I just read there is a pageant called Miss Bum Bum in Brazil where they crown the person with the best bum! Lol.. Pamela Anderson is one of the judges this time.
Link:
For more photos click here!
To know more about Miss BUM BUM pageant, click here!
Monday, 1 October 2012
New Statesman and "Gay Cures"
“We are a Christian initiative that supports men and women with race issues who voluntarily seek change in their skin colour. We do respect the rights of individuals who identify as ‘black’ who don't seek change (though such rights don't extend to them marrying each other). We also believe that the practice of going around being black is sinful for those seeking God’s highest purpose.
We will change your colour through the help of psychodrama, which involves the use of spontaneous dramatisation and elements of theatre, where the client acts out their emotions and internal conflicts on a stage with the use of props.
However, we’re a tad disappointed that the British Psychodrama Association has actually entirely revoked the trainee status of our counsellor and co-director (he wasn't even qualified), so we're doing this on a non-regulated basis. Dr Mike has been entirely open in his journey of changing his racial origins, and is now not black at all. He's completely ex-Black. We therefore don’t think this very fair at all.”
"Gay Cures"
How would you react to the above? Laugh, cry, shake your head? Don't just dismiss it, though: it is actually pretty much what “Core Issues Trust” is offering to gay men and women in the UK regarding their sexuality. Core Issues is a body that sets out its thoughts on a website littered with spelling mistakes that provides links to other sites, mainly in the US. One claims that “30% of all 20 year-old homosexual men will be HIV-positive or dead by the age of thirty.” Another claims that on divine intention for the ordering of human relationships “science and psychiatry have no answers”. It exists to promote the changing of sexual orientation.
How would you react to the above? Laugh, cry, shake your head? Don't just dismiss it, though: it is actually pretty much what “Core Issues Trust” is offering to gay men and women in the UK regarding their sexuality. Core Issues is a body that sets out its thoughts on a website littered with spelling mistakes that provides links to other sites, mainly in the US. One claims that “30% of all 20 year-old homosexual men will be HIV-positive or dead by the age of thirty.” Another claims that on divine intention for the ordering of human relationships “science and psychiatry have no answers”. It exists to promote the changing of sexual orientation.
The scientific, medical consensus on “gay cures” is actually absolutely clear. The BMA has condemned conversion therapy as discredited and harmful. The Royal College of Psychiatrists is unambiguous on the assertion that sexual orientation cannot be changed. The UK Council for Psychotherapy carries a video of a 22 year old Northern Irish man who talks of his experience of depression and suicidal thoughts during a “gay cure”. UKCP states that homosexuality is not an illness, cannot be cured and that it is an ethical offence to offer therapy with the aim of altering sexual orientation. Ben Summerskill, Chief Executive of Stonewall puts all this in layman’s term for us: “gay cures” are “voodoo therapy”.
The Harm
Why then, if this is such demonstrable nonsense, would anyone be upset about it then? I’m a little amazed I’d even need to set this out, but it is because LGBT people are being hurt by this. Not theoretically offended: people are actually being hurt. The Lesbian and Gay Foundation found that young LGB people are three to six times more likely to self-harm than heterosexual young people. It also estimated that 40% of all young LGB people self-harm or attempt suicide at least once LGBT people are still routinely bullied, mocked and abused, and nor is the situation confined just to the young.
These stats reflect general widespread negative attitudes, including the persistent belief that not being heterosexual is a choice and therefore the “fault” of the person involved. The promotion of “Gay cure” therapies as an alternative feed directly into that.
Why then, if this is such demonstrable nonsense, would anyone be upset about it then? I’m a little amazed I’d even need to set this out, but it is because LGBT people are being hurt by this. Not theoretically offended: people are actually being hurt. The Lesbian and Gay Foundation found that young LGB people are three to six times more likely to self-harm than heterosexual young people. It also estimated that 40% of all young LGB people self-harm or attempt suicide at least once LGBT people are still routinely bullied, mocked and abused, and nor is the situation confined just to the young.
These stats reflect general widespread negative attitudes, including the persistent belief that not being heterosexual is a choice and therefore the “fault” of the person involved. The promotion of “Gay cure” therapies as an alternative feed directly into that.
 |
| Do you care? I bloody do. About almost more than anything else |
Those numbers demonstrate the general culture. For the unfortunate people who submit themselves to the courses (or are submitted to them by their families) there is of course a much more immediate, serious, recognised, acknowledged risk of individual harm. The State of California onlyyesterday banned all such “therapies” for minors. Governor Brown stated “This bill bans non-scientific 'therapies' that have driven young people to depression and suicide. These practices have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”
Adverts Promoting Core Issues
Why then, we ask, is a leading liberal-left political publication, the New Statesman, accepting a full page advert in this week’s edition from “Core Issues”? This is the very “voodoo therapy” body that had its adverts pulled from London Buses by Tory Mayor Boris Johnson this April. This is the same homophobic group that was exposed by award-winning journalist Patrick Strudwick whilst undercover.
 |
| We "voluntarily seek change in sexual preference": Ad in NS |
You may of course take a free speech view, that any publication must accept money from any organisation that wants to publish on its pages. Never mind the commercial reaction of its readers to such views. This presumably would permit adverts that allow “cures” for black people and full page spreads from the EDL: just the kind of thing that would make people more likely to buy the magazine. Or you might think the New Statesman is simply greedy and will take whatever it can get. Perhaps there’s no link between its advertising, which is farmed out to an agency, and its editorial stance and therefore this is actually all terribly embarrassing for them. I actually think the latter is the most likely, but who knows.
An Apology. Of Sorts.
An Apology. Of Sorts.
What is clear is that the issue was brought to the New Statesman’s attention by @twf_mike at 12.33 on Sunday 30 September. There has been a wave of protest on Twitter, with people stating they would cancel subscriptions etc. The Labour Party Conference is currently on. The editorial team is not presumably having an ordinary Monday. Having tweeted on a range of issues all morning, finally at 15.19 today Monday 1 October they published the following:
However, I'm left personally feeling very disappointed by this. It is short. It rings hollow. It offers no explanation for the mistake. It does not mention "gay cures" which is why people object to the group, not its stance on gay marriage. I think it's quite implicit that New Statesman will not be taking future similar adverts, but that could easily have been spelled out. They could have offered the revenue from the ad to a LGBT counselling group to show the apology is real. My reaction is, however, relatively mild judging by my Twitter feed.
New Statesman don't seem to "get it". They don't acknowledge just how wrong this group is, and how their liberal/left readership has reacted to their making money from such a group. NS are supposed to be the "good guys". The LGBT community is used to a lack of understanding, mockery and writing that verges on abuse from the likes of Melanie Phillips at the Daily Mail. We do not expect or want it from the NS. The apology doesn't go nearly far enough, which implies they don't understand or they don't care. I really hope (and actually believe knowing one of the personalities involved) that's not the case, but it's how it comes across.
Ostriches in the Sand
There is another wider issue. If you are a corporation and you want to play on Twitter, you have to know the rules. These include giving someone a smartphone so that they can react if a storm blows up, even out of hours, even if everyone is at some drinks reception. We've seen it time and again with corporations using Twitter to promote their products and failing to engage swiftly and adequately when an issue comes up. It's not about 24/7 responses to routine things that can be dealt with in office hours: it's having one person who can firefight on the rare occasion something "big" comes up. This simple statement should have been out there yesterday afternoon, not 27 hours later. My disbelief turned to actual anger at the failure even to acknowledge the barrage of mentions. As one person put it to me "It looks like they don't give a f*ck". Yes, it did. One simple tweet from NS saying "We're not ignoring you, we need time to get a statement out" would have helped enormously.
Twitter is instant: Tesco tweeting about its special offers while ignoring the 200,000 who are tweeting at them about Workfare drives people up the wall. It pours oil on the flames and it makes matters worse. The editors at NS couldn't "undo" the fact their advertising guys took on this thing, whether by mistake or not. They could have acted swiftly though. It takes a second to publish a holding tweet. I hope New Statesman have learned from this. I also hope that instead of offering Core Issues the oxygen of free additional publicity through this furore, it will have highlighted the issue once more of just how objectionable and despicable they are.
New Statesman don't seem to "get it". They don't acknowledge just how wrong this group is, and how their liberal/left readership has reacted to their making money from such a group. NS are supposed to be the "good guys". The LGBT community is used to a lack of understanding, mockery and writing that verges on abuse from the likes of Melanie Phillips at the Daily Mail. We do not expect or want it from the NS. The apology doesn't go nearly far enough, which implies they don't understand or they don't care. I really hope (and actually believe knowing one of the personalities involved) that's not the case, but it's how it comes across.
Ostriches in the Sand
 |
| Not the best response on Twitter |
Twitter is instant: Tesco tweeting about its special offers while ignoring the 200,000 who are tweeting at them about Workfare drives people up the wall. It pours oil on the flames and it makes matters worse. The editors at NS couldn't "undo" the fact their advertising guys took on this thing, whether by mistake or not. They could have acted swiftly though. It takes a second to publish a holding tweet. I hope New Statesman have learned from this. I also hope that instead of offering Core Issues the oxygen of free additional publicity through this furore, it will have highlighted the issue once more of just how objectionable and despicable they are.
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Autumn
In other news, here's our mayor, Jón Gnarr, opening the Reykjavik International Film Festival on Thursday night. We like him. He's got Force ~°~
(Interesting tidbit: my father, Thor Roff, played Jón's father Roy Washington in the awesome movie, Bjarnfredarson, which you should definitely see.)
Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )
Saturday, 29 September 2012
Why I Tweet
(This post is part of the #WhyITweet series on Twitter)
Sociability
This question can pretty much be answered in one word: sociability! Twitter, for me, is simply a forum for bringing people together. It's a very basic human need to have social interaction, to talk, and to listen.
I live in the middle of nowhere in East Anglia. I moved here from Central London and Twitter has completely transformed my relationship to living here. Twitter has become an integral part of my life: I flick my phone on in the morning and check my @mentions, I respond to any messages that come during the day, and in the evening I love reading what people are up to and quite simply "chatting" online.
On Twitter I can access a whole range of people: "my" kind of people (as a lefty, Europhile, vegetarian, gay man they're in somewhat short supply where I live) as well as all sorts of other people I would not otherwise talk to. I love the range of perspectives: I literally follow from 16 year olds up to people in their 70s. I can chat to journalists, actors, students, mums, QCs, feminists, politicians, a bishop: people of all backgrounds and interests - many of whom I wouldn't have access to in real life. It literally does broaden my horizons and view of life. A huge eye-opener has been the subject of depression: people can be incredibly frank and this is hugely valuable and genuinely educational. When these issues are presented in the context of real people's experiences, you tend to listen.
Making & Keeping In Touch With Friends
Because I see Twitter as a social hub, I like to meet people off it too. If I go down to London I find that people who tweet regularly seem to be more likely to meet up on the spur of the moment, and share this casual sociability. In true OCD fashion I keep a list of people I've met from Twitter (this means met and actually spoken to). It's currently on 173 people. Almost everyone is pretty much how I imagined them to be from their online persona. I find it wonderful that I can drive, say to Manchester, and see signposts for towns where I know people from Twitter live. I have a network of friends across the country, and indeed to a lesser extent, abroad.
I've tweeted 107,000 times in about 2 and a half years. That sounds like a horrendously high amount of times. A quick count of today's tweets (it's currently 6pm on a Saturday) shows I've tweeted 197 times - however only 12 are general tweets to all my followers. 185 are "conversation" tweets, where I've been interacting with someone, either answering a tweet of theirs or answering a tweet they've sent to me. Over time I've noticed people forming real, overlapping networks of friends. It is a social community: we share good times, we have a moan. It's what people do. I don't tweet, as some do, primarily as a broadcasting platform without follow-up interaction. I'm here to talk to people, some of whom I regard as very real friends in every sense of the word. I also don't just talk about one subject as some do (e.g law or politics): it's everything for me.
I also tweet to keep in touch with "real life" friends. I find emails so onerous to answer, and who calls nowadays anyway (except my Mutti, obviously)? Tweeting is a brilliant way to keep in touch. They're fast, short and I very rarely find responding to my @ mentions a pain in the way I do sitting down and answering some great long email. Some of my friends are abroad, in China or Australia: it means we stay in touch day to day in a way we wouldn't if we had to mechanically call, email or write letters (Remember them? I don't, but I saw some in a museum once.)
I love tweeting my thoughts and experiences: from "serious topics" such as sharing my views on current affairs, through to my disasters in the kitchen, or pictures of my dog. I know sufficient people on Twitter, that it's rare that a tweet, no matter how mundane, will not get some kind of response. There is always someone "listening", no matter what time of day. I've experienced being lonely in real life, both in London and living up here. It sounds a bit ridiculous to someone who doesn't understand the medium, but it's nice to know that if I see some twatty sign somewhere, there are people there to share it with and have a laugh about it. It's basic social interaction via a photo, an app, and a smartphone.
Is It Just About Egos?
I'm not dishonest enough to say that there isn't a bit of an ego-boost in knowing people will be prepared to listen to me and find me interesting enough to follow me. Of course we all like it when people follow us. However, I'm also not enough of a knob to realise the truth in the following tweet, from my "real life" friend Jamie in Australia. He's always GREAT in bringing people down a notch in true, blunt Aussie fashion.
If your sense of self-worth is dependent on how many people follow you and how many retweets you get a week, your relationship to Twitter is probably not that healthy.
The Good And The Bad
Again, Twitter is people (and of course sometimes people pretending to be their pets. Ahem). They can inform me, challenge me, make me laugh, make me cry: that's just what people do. It is something I regard as an integral part of my life. I met my stunning boyfriend Ste through it. I find this literally amazing, wonderful and exciting all in one. (No blog is of course nowadays complete without making you all reach for the bucket. I therefore thought I'd slip that in there as a reminder.) I incidentally don't think Twitter has become "less fun" over the time I've been on here: more people have joined, and I'm constantly meeting new, interesting folk.
Sometimes there's abuse: my big brother, who doesn't really "get" the whole thing recently pensively asked me "is it worth it?". This was after the colourful tweets I received from Assange supporters. Yes it is worth it: on average for the one trolling message, I receive probably 1000 pleasant ones. There are pillocks in life: I hardly feel threatened by keyboard warriors at the other side of the country directing their pathetic abuse at me hidden behind an egg avatar. If it weren't bringing me pleasure, I wouldn't be on Twitter.
Last, This Blog
The last reason I tweet is to promote this, my blog. My blog doesn't exist separately from my Twitter experience: it's just a form of "Twitlonger" with pictures. I love it when people read it, share it and comment on it. I can do the same thing I here that I do on Twitter: voice my thoughts from the mundane through to sharing very personal reflections..
You're one of these people, so as ever, thank you for reading :)
UPDATE: Two interesting things came out of chats on Twitter this morning about this post:
1) It's not just sociability. It's about being able to switch it on and off when it suits you. If you want quiet, it's not like having friends or relatives around for the evening or weekend. It's take it or leave it and no one notices or objects. This is, I guess, pretty selfish in a way, but it's this instant access sociability that is a key thing that I like.
2) For gay men it's a really important way of making gay friends without the omnipresent background context of sex involved in talking to people in bars, on Gaydar or Grindr. Twitter isn't a dating site: it's a place to get to know gay men with their shirts on for a change. Guys on Gaydar and Grindr can say what they want about "looking for friends" - we all know it's bull. I've seen tweets saying "I've never had actual gay friends before Twitter". That is *wonderful*.
Sociability
This question can pretty much be answered in one word: sociability! Twitter, for me, is simply a forum for bringing people together. It's a very basic human need to have social interaction, to talk, and to listen.
I live in the middle of nowhere in East Anglia. I moved here from Central London and Twitter has completely transformed my relationship to living here. Twitter has become an integral part of my life: I flick my phone on in the morning and check my @mentions, I respond to any messages that come during the day, and in the evening I love reading what people are up to and quite simply "chatting" online.
On Twitter I can access a whole range of people: "my" kind of people (as a lefty, Europhile, vegetarian, gay man they're in somewhat short supply where I live) as well as all sorts of other people I would not otherwise talk to. I love the range of perspectives: I literally follow from 16 year olds up to people in their 70s. I can chat to journalists, actors, students, mums, QCs, feminists, politicians, a bishop: people of all backgrounds and interests - many of whom I wouldn't have access to in real life. It literally does broaden my horizons and view of life. A huge eye-opener has been the subject of depression: people can be incredibly frank and this is hugely valuable and genuinely educational. When these issues are presented in the context of real people's experiences, you tend to listen.
Making & Keeping In Touch With Friends
Because I see Twitter as a social hub, I like to meet people off it too. If I go down to London I find that people who tweet regularly seem to be more likely to meet up on the spur of the moment, and share this casual sociability. In true OCD fashion I keep a list of people I've met from Twitter (this means met and actually spoken to). It's currently on 173 people. Almost everyone is pretty much how I imagined them to be from their online persona. I find it wonderful that I can drive, say to Manchester, and see signposts for towns where I know people from Twitter live. I have a network of friends across the country, and indeed to a lesser extent, abroad.
 |
| Wonderful people: everyone of whom I know from Twitter |
I've tweeted 107,000 times in about 2 and a half years. That sounds like a horrendously high amount of times. A quick count of today's tweets (it's currently 6pm on a Saturday) shows I've tweeted 197 times - however only 12 are general tweets to all my followers. 185 are "conversation" tweets, where I've been interacting with someone, either answering a tweet of theirs or answering a tweet they've sent to me. Over time I've noticed people forming real, overlapping networks of friends. It is a social community: we share good times, we have a moan. It's what people do. I don't tweet, as some do, primarily as a broadcasting platform without follow-up interaction. I'm here to talk to people, some of whom I regard as very real friends in every sense of the word. I also don't just talk about one subject as some do (e.g law or politics): it's everything for me.
I also tweet to keep in touch with "real life" friends. I find emails so onerous to answer, and who calls nowadays anyway (except my Mutti, obviously)? Tweeting is a brilliant way to keep in touch. They're fast, short and I very rarely find responding to my @ mentions a pain in the way I do sitting down and answering some great long email. Some of my friends are abroad, in China or Australia: it means we stay in touch day to day in a way we wouldn't if we had to mechanically call, email or write letters (Remember them? I don't, but I saw some in a museum once.)
 |
| Who DOESN'T like seeing @LassieOscar? |
I love tweeting my thoughts and experiences: from "serious topics" such as sharing my views on current affairs, through to my disasters in the kitchen, or pictures of my dog. I know sufficient people on Twitter, that it's rare that a tweet, no matter how mundane, will not get some kind of response. There is always someone "listening", no matter what time of day. I've experienced being lonely in real life, both in London and living up here. It sounds a bit ridiculous to someone who doesn't understand the medium, but it's nice to know that if I see some twatty sign somewhere, there are people there to share it with and have a laugh about it. It's basic social interaction via a photo, an app, and a smartphone.
Is It Just About Egos?
I'm not dishonest enough to say that there isn't a bit of an ego-boost in knowing people will be prepared to listen to me and find me interesting enough to follow me. Of course we all like it when people follow us. However, I'm also not enough of a knob to realise the truth in the following tweet, from my "real life" friend Jamie in Australia. He's always GREAT in bringing people down a notch in true, blunt Aussie fashion.
The Good And The Bad
Again, Twitter is people (and of course sometimes people pretending to be their pets. Ahem). They can inform me, challenge me, make me laugh, make me cry: that's just what people do. It is something I regard as an integral part of my life. I met my stunning boyfriend Ste through it. I find this literally amazing, wonderful and exciting all in one. (No blog is of course nowadays complete without making you all reach for the bucket. I therefore thought I'd slip that in there as a reminder.) I incidentally don't think Twitter has become "less fun" over the time I've been on here: more people have joined, and I'm constantly meeting new, interesting folk.
 |
| Just in case anyone needs it, here's one |
Sometimes there's abuse: my big brother, who doesn't really "get" the whole thing recently pensively asked me "is it worth it?". This was after the colourful tweets I received from Assange supporters. Yes it is worth it: on average for the one trolling message, I receive probably 1000 pleasant ones. There are pillocks in life: I hardly feel threatened by keyboard warriors at the other side of the country directing their pathetic abuse at me hidden behind an egg avatar. If it weren't bringing me pleasure, I wouldn't be on Twitter.
Last, This Blog
The last reason I tweet is to promote this, my blog. My blog doesn't exist separately from my Twitter experience: it's just a form of "Twitlonger" with pictures. I love it when people read it, share it and comment on it. I can do the same thing I here that I do on Twitter: voice my thoughts from the mundane through to sharing very personal reflections..
You're one of these people, so as ever, thank you for reading :)
UPDATE: Two interesting things came out of chats on Twitter this morning about this post:
1) It's not just sociability. It's about being able to switch it on and off when it suits you. If you want quiet, it's not like having friends or relatives around for the evening or weekend. It's take it or leave it and no one notices or objects. This is, I guess, pretty selfish in a way, but it's this instant access sociability that is a key thing that I like.
2) For gay men it's a really important way of making gay friends without the omnipresent background context of sex involved in talking to people in bars, on Gaydar or Grindr. Twitter isn't a dating site: it's a place to get to know gay men with their shirts on for a change. Guys on Gaydar and Grindr can say what they want about "looking for friends" - we all know it's bull. I've seen tweets saying "I've never had actual gay friends before Twitter". That is *wonderful*.
Friday, 28 September 2012
Vísir
I wish I had the time to translate this entire article about this shop and the historic building it's in, but suffice to say the building is 164 years old and has always houses some type of business, starting with a restaurant in 1848 that unfortunately didn't thrive as planned. The store Vísir was established in 1915, and ownership has stayed in the same family: according to the article, as of 2003 the grandson of one of the original owners still ran the store.
I remember back when I was a little one staying with my Amma, Frú Ásta Beck, on Óðinsgata just up the hill that I loved going to Vísir where, since 1959, the owners have prided themselves on always having a supply of fresh fruit. (Across the street, at the corner of Skólavörðurstígur and Laugavegur, in the half-basement where the café Kofinn is now,* was a butcher's shop with all sorts of cuts hanging in the window, a total novelty for a California-raised kid like me.)
*In the yellow building to the left in the third photo down in the linked post ; )
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